Wondering which is better for your business? Here is a quick comparison of the two search engine optimization strategies:
Paid Search
How it Works: Paid search is also referred to as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisement. A popular example of PPC advertisement is Google AdWords. In this type of search result, companies pay to have their ad included on the first page of search engine results pages for particular keywords. Every time someone clicks on the link in your ad, you must pay Google a predetermined rate, called the Cost Per Click (CPC).
Pros: Using paid search guarantees placement of your company’s ads on the first page of search results for your designated keywords.
Cons: Because the Cost Per Click increases for competitive keywords, paid search can be very expensive. Depending on the keywords you want to target, you may need a very large budget devoted to paid search in order for it to be effective in generating leads.
Organic Search
How it Works: Organic search engine optimization involves an extensive amount of marketing strategy and analytics. A high page rank is given to sites that include the keyword or key phrase and have lots of internal and external links.
Pros: The best reason to employ an organic search strategy is that it’s free! Organic results also get much higher traffic volumes and are perceived as more reliable and of greater quality than paid advertisements.
Cons: Attaining a first page ranking is an arduous process. Although there is no financial cost, you must be willing to devote a lot of time to developing a successful organic SEO campaign. If you hire an outsource marketing department to manage your organic search rankings, beware of black hat SEO tricks. Some marketing “professionals” will use these unethical tactics to get you ranked highly, but it is only a matter of time before Google penalizes your site by erasing it from the rankings completely.
While both strategies have their strengths and weaknesses, each can be used effectively to build a successful search engine optimization campaign. You must determine if paid search, organic search, or a combination of the two is right for your business based on your budget, time allotment, and overall marketing goals.
